Grim and Bright
by hellotohangup
Summary: Short piece. Buffy goes to see Faith in jail. Post Wrecked.


Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, they belong to Joss and such others much more talented than I.   
Spoilers: Up to Season 6 Wrecked and Angel eps with Faith in them.  
Song lyrics: Jimmy Eat World - In the Middle, Discount - Antiseptic and Alanis - These Are the Thoughts and Sixty Stories - In the Clear.   
Authors note: The lack of new faith fiction was bugging me so I decided that even if my writings and ramblings suck they might inspire someone to write it much better than me.  
Story goes like this: Faith POV then Buffy POV 

**Grim and Bright**

_Hey don't write yourself off now.  
It's only in your head you feel left out or let down on.  
Just try your best, try everything you can.  
And don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away._

Strange, after all I had been through I was afraid of the law.   
People, who were put there to protect lives like me. Protecting the innocent from things that went bump in the night. Well maybe not so innocent, everyone has his or her dirty little secrets. No wait. That wasn't me at all; my motivation was never saving others. How could I, when I couldn't even save my own watcher, couldn't even save myself? Maybe I wasn't afraid of them at all, not really.  
Maybe I was afraid of myself.

Afraid of my inability to feel remorse, afraid that if I let myself feel I wouldn't be able to stop and it would all become too much, afraid because I didn't feel the right things even when I tried. So I felt some emotions other than anger. But they never lasted long enough. They were fleeting moments. I got myself in so deep that I couldn't see my way to dig myself out.

It's like there was this movement a symphony if you will, and I tried to play along but it was classical and I was always rock, everyone was on the beat and I was the messy syncopated rhythm that didn't belong. Everyone came from money, dressed nice or spoke proper and I was tainted by my looks, destined to be nothing but a downtown slut in the eyes of others. How do you recognise compassion or friendship when you have never felt it? How can you love when no one has ever loved you? How can you be truly sorry and seek forgiveness when you can't even forgive yourself. 

Bad things become imprinted on your brain whether you wish to remember or not. Harsh words and hatred these things stay with you. Hear "loser" one too many times and you become it.

Sometimes your brain disengages itself and doesn't pick up the other things that are going on around you. Sometimes you are blinded by the things that have been drilled into you from an early age, too consumed by your past stuff ups to see when your next one is coming. That was me. I was so busy trying to shut out the bad stuff that I shut the good out as well. 

But finally something got through, someone got through.  
It was time to face reality.  
The thing that I had convinced myself I was afraid of. The one place I didn't ever want to go was the place I ended up in. And of my own free will no less. Jail.  
Did I enjoy watching others suffer? Was I a criminal? Or was I just embracing the true nature of a slayer?   
I thought jail would confirm what I had always been told. That I was a lowly good for nothing person who wasn't capable of anything but screwing up other peoples lives. I mean it would stop me doing my job, can't save the world from jail I'd said. Can't do much of anything, but sit and think and be alone with yourself.  
I had some time to think and some ugly realisations to make. I'd always been alone, but being alone didn't make me strong like I once told myself. It made me weaker.   
I told myself there was only one person I could rely on and that person was me. I couldn't face the fact that I might need to share my problems with people who wouldn't even share their own. There was something wrong with me. I was broken. I had lost my ability to care, or suppressed it because caring just lead to more heartbreak and disappointment, I still hadn't worked out which. But Angel was right; there was redemption to be found. I could atone for some of my mistakes given time. I couldn't handle one day but I could handle a minute and eventually I could handle looking at my own reflection. Someday I will look and I won't hate what I see, won't smile that shit eating grin that that I use to kid myself into believing I'm in control. The same grin that tells everyone else that I could spiral out of control at any time. That I could take whomever I wanted down with me. I found out that I am not as heartless as I had once thought.  
I am sorry, not for all the things I have done, but for some. And that's a start, a step in right direction.

Then something happened, something I would never of expected.  
I don't remember what they said to me, but I remember being told she was a dead. No more slayer dreams, no more Buffy and apparently no new slayer. The only slayer was me and I was locked up here no good to anyone. I cried, all night, and I laughed manically because it was the first time in a long time that I had felt something and I didn't just feel angry. I felt sad and I started chocking up. I felt everything I had ever experienced come back on me tenfold and I collapsed because all of a sudden I was feeling too many emotions at once and it was too much. I wasn't used to letting it all out.

And at that moment it became clear. I had to stop hoping for the solace that I thought only her words of forgiveness would provide. I knew then that I had to work for my redemption, it wouldn't be handed to me on a silver platter and it wouldn't be quick, it would be ongoing, a daily struggle. She wouldn't walk in that door and look through the dirty glass and say the one thing I craved the most. "I forgive you faith." Not even Buffy Super Slayer could magic it away and make it all better. Besides it wasn't all about her, my issues in Sunnydale were just the icing on the cake; I had a lot of emotional trauma weighing me down and it was good to finally find a release that didn't involve pummelling things to death. Not that I don't miss vamp slaying, I miss that the most in here. But you know what I mean. Letting it all out, I think I finally started to come to terms with everything.

I never thought I would see her again, but I was wrong. I underestimated the one person whose strength I had felt in more ways than one. As she stabbed me, when I stole her body, as I fought by her side and against her. I underestimated how much everyone was relying on her, how much they loved and needed her. They brought her back.

Weeks later there was a call from Angel asking could she come see me. So I waited.

_Why do I say I'm fine when it's obvious I'm not?  
Why's it so hard for me to tell you what I want  
Why can't you just read my mind?_

"You've got a visitor."  
I felt excited and sick all at once and I was shaking so bad I had to steady myself, resting my hands on the table for support. I picked up the phone but didn't want to look up. I didn't know why she had come and I didn't know what to say. Sorry was what I felt, but it wasn't enough to say it. What if things between us could never be right? Maybe I had been kidding myself and I hadn't changed at all? It was never a comfortable silence with us, just the sound of fists or verbal sparring and I wasn't sure it could be anything else.   
"Faith..."  
I hear her voice through the phone, tentative and I finally look up.   
I suck in a fast breath as our eyes meet. I don't know what I expected to see, but it wasn't this.  
I once told her that she was all about control, that for me there was nothing, just pain and hurt and she could never understand, no one could understand. But sitting here now I see she does and I wish I could take it all back, I wish she didn't understand like only someone who's been hurt to the point of numbness can. I see recognition in her eyes and I wonder what she must have been through to get there.  
And then I see her sigh. I imagine she is sighing because realises that I am different, that I'm sorry. I let her see the emotion in my eyes, and without speaking a word we both know there's a chance for things to be ok again.  
Our situations may have been reversed, I am ready to take responsibility for my actions and am slowly rediscovering the side of me that cares about other people. I don't think I've ever felt this nervous or this relieved in my life. I thought she'd tear me to shreds, because I hurt her the worst of anyone. She tried to help me, maybe she didn't try hard enough or in ways that mattered enough to make a difference but she tried harder than anyone had before. I realise that she isn't my redemption but after everything I want her trust. I had a friend and I fucked up, but maybe there's still a chance, a chance she won't hate me forever.  
I swallow and try to speak, my voice fading in and out, my throat dry and scratchy. "So your really back, you cheated death a second time?" I break the long silence.  
"You forgot the I'm glad bit…you know I'm so glad your back" she recites the last words and I imagine them saying it to her, she must have heard that a million times by now.   
"Are you?" I ask in reply.  
She furrows her brow, "Am I what?"   
"You know, glad to be back"  
She hesitates "Yes, No, I mean I don't know, everything's different, I just… I don't know how to feel… so how about you? You would have been the chosen one, " she flips it back onto me.  
"Nah, I would have been a goner, soon as the council found out they would have sent someone to finish me off. So it's just as well you came back B, I might live to see another day."  
"I miss that," she blurts out.  
I stare at her quizzically.  
"Being called B…" she explains.  
"Oh…"   
And I want to tell her that I miss slaying, that I miss her witty puns and her pet name for her stake, miss being the chosen two, miss Sunny D. I miss her. But I'm being tapped on the shoulder. I just sit there staring at her until I'm pulled roughly to my feet. My visiting time is over. I wonder how long we must have sat there saying nothing. She stands up as I'm being led away, her eyes never leaving mine. I imagine her saying she misses me too, but I know she couldn't after all the things I've done to her. She just stands there looking like she is going to burst out crying and I wonder if it's something I've done to upset her, if she regrets that she came. I'm crying myself and I no longer care who sees me. Someday I'll be out and there won't be this glass between us. Someday I'll have the courage to ask her to be my friend again. Someday we'll be the chosen two once more. Someday. Not today. Today I'm one step closer to being ok.

_ Will you be there watching me unzip my chest, exposing my heart to the toxic air?   
I need the antiseptic only your words can provide.  
I can hear the laughter, I can hear the laughter but sometimes it's muffled into fear and screams.  
I was wondering if you'd be an amplifier so I could pick up the little things._

I wanted to see her. I guess I wanted to see for myself if she had changed, but more than that I wanted to see with newly opened eyes whether she felt, or whether she pretended she couldn't, hiding everything inside so no one would see. Was she really incapable of feeling after all? Which did I hope for? Neither, I wished neither were true. But I needed to know. Was she like me now?   
Mostly we walked different paths but on a rare occasion, we were as one. Two warriors carved from the same stone fighting side by side.   
There was tension between us. An ever-present uneasiness waiting to seep through and taint everything between us. Maybe it was because there was never supposed to be two slayers at the same time. Or maybe it was there because she suffered like me through the arduous chore of trying to convince everyone that you are all right. She had been far from all right. Her actions and words juxtaposed with her desires were contradictory. She said she needed no one and yet secretly she craved approval and acceptance for the person she was and the job she did. She said she needed no one but behind her words I felt she was desperately crying out for help. She wanted someone to stop her committing the horrible deeds she had committed because she couldn't stop herself. She had needed emotional support, something I hadn't been strong enough to provide. I got that now.  
And what about me? However much I hated to admit it, Spike was right. I came back wrong. I didn't need a demonstration. I came back changed. I once thought I had lost my ability to love, but it was nothing compared to this. I just wanted to be back to normal. Perhaps I wanted to be dead again, I don't know, it was my gift after all. Death.   
The best gift I had ever received. Did that make me weak? Was I wrong to want peace for myself? Was it wrong that I didn't want the destiny that had been handed to me?

I arranged a meeting and then I waited. I guess this proved I hadn't lost all my emotions. I felt sick to my stomach with apprehension. She always heightened my emotions, knew every button to press. I wondered if I would feel the familiar disgust and anger when I set eyes on her again. Would it be different now time had passed? Now I felt harsh emotions toward the people who brought me back? Would it lessen the wrongs that came before, had my perspective on things changed with my re-entry to the mortal world?

I sit down in a cold chair and pick up the receiver that lies in front of me. I glance around at the visitors and back down as one catches me staring. I look forward and she is sitting there in front of me. She is looking down also, she looks afraid. It takes a moment to sink in. This is Faith. There's a glass pane before me but no walls, not the emotional kind that used to surround her. This is faith the girl and she is looking that way because she is scared of me. I grip the phone tighter and speak tentatively.  
"Faith…" She looks up slowly and our eyes meet. I remind myself she doesn't need my anger and try to hide it but it doesn't come. I no longer feel intense anger toward her. I sigh.  
She looks different, or maybe it's just that I have never look properly before, behind all the bravado and banter. She speaks to me and her voice wavers in an oddly endearing fashion. She tries again in a soft and gravelled tone. "So your really back, you cheated death a second time?"  
"You forgot the I'm glad bit…you know I'm so glad your back" I reply thankful that she hadn't voiced it aloud even if she felt it. I don't think I could handle hearing it once more, how glad everyone was. Just like I couldn't handle her apology when she needed to say it the most. I'm only human right? Slayer or not there's only so much I can handle. "Are you?" … am I what? I must have wandered off in thought. I furrow my brow trying to process what she is asking. Seeing her again is very overwhelming to say the least.   
She helps me out. "You know, glad to be back"  
That's the million-dollar question. She never was one for pleasantries, a straight shooter.   
"Yes, No, I mean I don't know, everything's different, I just… I don't know how to feel… so how about you? You would have been the chosen one. " I throw the conversation back her way, if I knew the answer I would tell her, let her in. I have no desire to repeat my past mistakes. If she wanted to share I could handle it now.  
I wonder how everything in my life got so screwed up, was I as much to blame for my current situation as I felt everyone else was?  
She is still speaking. She called me B. God I missed that, I am so tired of all the unspoken questions that linger with the speaking of my name back in Sunnydale. Are you ok? Why aren't you happy? We brought you back Buff, shit you should be jumping for joy now you get another chance at living.   
"I miss that," she is looking at me quizzically and I realise I must have spoken it aloud."Being called B…" I explain to her recalling what I have said.   
"Oh…"  
She looks so sad and I feel so relieved because I can see she's emotive now, feels remorse for the things she has done, the hurt she caused me. She is looking at me with the saddest of expressions. I feel sad too and I want to tell her that I forgive her, our past is in the past, but I am too busy just feeling. I am not ready to voice everything yet. She is being pulled away. God no, I want her to come back I want to see her smile a real smile because maybe this time I'll be able to smile in return. I want to tell her to come back when she gets out of here. Tell her I need her because she is the only other living person who knows what it's like to be the Slayer. I need someone to confide in with a heartbeat and a pulse. I want to tell her that she can be my friend. But she's being pulled away, so I just look in her eyes sharing her sadness, feeding off her open emotional display, regaining my own emotions. She may of hurt me the hardest but we shared the same destiny if not for more than a minute. We clicked if not for more than a second and that counts for something. A connection is what I crave right now, one that is sustainable and doesn't require me giving what I don't have. I still feel a connection staring deeply in her eyes as she is being dragged away. Sometimes you find what you are looking for in the strangest places. 

_We'll laugh harder at our stupid jokes and then all at once I'll feel the relief I need.  
I can't believe how long it's been for me.  
Anyways, once were in the clear I'll tell you how nice it is that you're here._

I find myself mouthing, "I miss you" but she's too busy staring in my eyes and she's crying and then she's gone and I don't think I've felt this much hope since I've been back. She's not just rotting in jail like the scoobies expected, she's fighting her inner battle for redemption, her dark side and I think she might just come out on top this time. I never admitted it she had it much harder than I ever did or maybe we both had it equally hard but in different ways. I thought her jealous, but she only wished that I appreciated the things I had because they had never been hers. If she can be ok then I think there's hope for me yet. Maybe I haven't lost my ability to feel after all, just forgot how to feel. We both did, and maybe she'll help me remember, we'll help each other. Not today, not all at once, but soon. See you soon I think walking out. Soon. 


End file.
